


How It Began

by TheTruthBetween



Series: Unforeseen [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Prologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4921510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTruthBetween/pseuds/TheTruthBetween





	How It Began

Rumplestiltskin was a powerful man. A man to be feared, to be avoided. A man who manipulated people and events to bring about what he wanted. Rumplestiltskin was a man with the power to see future events, and he used this power in his quest. What he didn’t realize, however, was that his power was limited. He could not see that which he was unable to understand.

As such, when he brought about the Dark Curse, intent on joining the world his lost son was part of, he did not foresee that the bombs would drop. That, eight years before the curse was supposed to break, the devastation of war shattered the barrier between the cursed town and the rest of the world, destroying the curse -- but not breaking it.

Half of the town, and its people, were obliterated by the blast. The townspeople considered it a miracle that the mayor and her young son had not been home at the time, the once pristine mansion reduced to scorched wood and smouldering ruins.

Everyone, however, even the powerful Rumplestiltskin, found themselves grateful for the mayor’s chance survival, as the woman took control of the crisis, protected her town and its people, and ultimately lead them to carefully cobble together their devastated lives.

***

Emma Swan, at twenty years old, lived in Tallahassee, Florida. Waiting. She’d been there for almost two years, ever since being released from prison and finding the Bug -- her Bug, now -- waiting for her, registration in her name and everything. She knew it was a sign, that her year in prison had been in mistake, a misunderstanding, that Neal was coming back to her.

As the years passed, however, that certainty waned.

And when It happened, when the explosions rocked the earth and the city went up in flames, she knew she couldn’t wait any longer. With little but the clothes on her back, she took her little car north, skipping small town to small town in an effort to avoid the worst of the devastation.

In her first month on the road, she saw more dead bodies than she had in every horror movies she’d ever watched, made all the worse for the fact that it was real.

For years she traveled, savaging gasoline for her car, parts when it broke down. Raiding abandoned stores for clothes and other necessities. After a time in Nova Scotia, she found herself heading down the coast of Maine, considering that a little abandoned fishing town might be a place to settle down. The Bug was on its last legs, and then some, when it lurched and sputtered past a charred, worn sign. Emma could just make out the words, “Welc … to … Storybr …”

 

 


End file.
